


Cold Toes Heavy Shoulders

by notcoolenoughtobehere



Series: Frazel for Days [1]
Category: The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: All of my poor babies have nightmares, Awkwardness, Comfort, F/M, FRANZEL, Fluff, Frank has nightmares, Hazel has nightmares, Nightmares, Post-The Mark of Athena, This couple doesn't get the attention they d e s e r v e, This is one of those fanfictions that you write because no one else will, Trauma, no sin here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-20
Updated: 2018-07-20
Packaged: 2019-06-12 20:47:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15348396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notcoolenoughtobehere/pseuds/notcoolenoughtobehere
Summary: In which a traumatized Hazel is also a blanket hog.





	Cold Toes Heavy Shoulders

**Author's Note:**

> While it is a relatively mediocre way to start my Frazel/Franzel series, I am happy to be starting it, and I may come back to this idea later.
> 
> This ~does~ take place in an ambiguous pocket of time after the trauma of MoA but before the trauma of HoH on the Argo II betwixt my most! underrated! ship!!! They deserve love,,, I have strong feelings about this.

When Frank wakes up, the black night sky harbors the thousand constellations of a sunless horizon. The Argo II creaks in the wind as it limps through a bank of clouds, interrupted only by a soft knocking at Frank's door. 

Frank blinks away the burning in his eyes. Rest rarely evades Frank; but it always seems to trick him, leaving him more tired than before he slept. The room falls quiet again, and Frank begins to lower his eyelids - he's heard imaginary noises before, when the intensity of his nightmares still echoed in his ears. But then it comes again, louder, forcing Frank groggily out of his bed, stumbling to the door. 

He opens the door blindly and squints at the delicate light of the hallway. It takes him a moment for his eyes to adjust, then another moment before he fully comprehends. Was that - 

"Hazel?" Frank's voice is embarrassingly rough with sleep and at least a pitch higher than he would have liked. 

At least he's wearing real pajamas. 

Fortunately, so is Hazel. Frank wonders if the red in his face will glow bright enough to illuminate the darkness. He swallows and shuffles backwards.

"Hazel, uhm - it's past curfew. We can't, I mean, you should - we shouldn't be - " 

Hazel sniffs. In the dim glow, Frank can almost make out tired, red eyes that still shine with tears. Hazel looks exhausted, her shoulders slumped inward like her body is a crumpled piece of paper. Her hair is swallowed in a dissolving half-bun that rests haphazardly on the side of her head, her 'Black Lives Matter' t-shirt askew across one shoulder, her bare feet curling on the wooden floorboards. Despite this obvious weariness, Hazel's eyes are wide and afraid. 

Frank takes a deep breath.

"I know, Frank. I just, um." Hazel's voice is muffled with sleeplessness. Hazel must be almost entirely out of it - Frank recalls the embarrassed flush that came to Hazel's cheeks when she had heard about Percy and Annabeth's escapade in the lower deck, the way she had fanned her face nervously with her hand - a fully awake Hazel would at least be blushing. 

Frank considers his options. He could step outside and they could talk there, in the coldness of the hallway, and they could ignore the shivers that already reverberated across Hazel's shoulders - maybe Frank could grab his blanket? Or, Frank could walk her back to her room - 

"Can we - can we talk?" And suddenly, Frank is taking a step back and Hazel is stumbling into the room and sitting on the edge of his bed. 

Oh, gods, okay. 

"Uh. What's up?" Frank winces. It sounds lame and awkward even in his ears. Hazel's lower lip trembles. 

"I had a nightmare." Hazel's voice is clear and Frank wonders if she is more aware than she appears. A nightmare? Frank is almost relieved that Hazel isn't hurt - but then he sees her, and tears are starting to sink down her face, and she's looking at Frank with so much desperation in her eyes that Frank can feel it start to gather in his throat, clogging his voicebox with anxiety, so the next words out of his mouth are quiet.

"Oh. Hey - it's - " and Frank steps forward, concern joining his panic, and sits down on the bed next to her. Hazel sets her head on his shoulder and wraps her arms around him like it's the most natural thing in the world, and Frank reaches his hand tentatively across her shoulders. "It-it's alright."

Hazel becomes quiet, head resting on Frank's chest. Frank's heart begins to slow, beating to the constant rhythm of Hazel's breathing. He can feel the Argo shifting in its course, teetering on a wind bank as it sails. Although it's warmer in Frank's room than the hallway, Frank can see each curl of her hair tremble as her shoulders shake, so, with his free hand, he pulls his covers over her.

"There was a sea of oil," Hazel whispers after a year of soft, swaying silence. "The ship was sailing on a sea of oil, and even Percy drowned." 

Frank tries to swallow the dryness in his mouth. He wasn't trained for this! Hazel was here, in his bedroom, crying on his shoulder - and they were dating (?) - and Frank is terrible at this comforting thing.

"I - I have nightmares, too." First, Frank grimaces at his stupid reply. But he feels a wave of exhaustion wash over him, not from the weeks of restless nights, but from the weight of everything inside him, almost as heavy as the firewood that carries his life. Hazel looks up at him, brown-golden eyes tired and teary. Frank fails to reign in the words tumbling out of his mouth, but he does not try very hard.

"I feel afraid. All the time. And now - now Percy and Annabeth are gone, and I don't know how to do this - I'm not - I'm not a hero." 

It is a relief, to say it out loud. To let Hazel - beautiful, brave Hazel - know that he isn't what they thought of him. He sees a change in the Argo crew; they look at him like he is one of the next in line, like he is now expected to step up and fix everything and be on the same level as the rest of the seven, but he wasn't. He wasn't prophecy level.

"It's not fair. We're supposed to be these saviors, these chosen ones, but we're just kids." Hazel's voice is croaky and small but insistent, a rallying call against an incredible injustice. Hazel is strong - stronger than him, maybe stronger than anyone he'd ever met, stronger than Jason and Percy and all those heroes. Gods, is Frank crying? He blinks against his blurry vision, desperately reminding himself that he's supposed to be the one comforting Hazel - not the other way around. 

Frank doesn't say anything, and a still silence falls over them. It's laden with the hours of sleep that escaped them both, with the monsters and the fears and the desperation.

"I think I made the oil, in my dream. As you screamed, I cried." Hazel's voice is muffled by Frank's shirt and clogged with tears. 

When had they laid down? Frank lifts his hand to Hazel's hair and combs through it gently. 

"I'm right here, Hazel. It's okay."

__

When Frank wakes again, his feet are cold. His blankets are wrapped in a small lump by his side, his left arm, nestled in the pile, the only warm part of his body. Through the haze of his mind, Frank wonders when he fell asleep and how long he had been sleeping, stars still shining bright outside his window, but the thoughts are lost as Frank tugs at his blanket. Frank would later blame his fading consciousness for ignoring the blanket's resistance 

Frank pulls the blanket open and rolls into it, blurry incognizance twisting his thoughts as he buries his head in a warm shoulder and wraps an arm around a torso. It is, of course, Hazel's curls, tickling across the bridge of his nose, that tugs his eyes open in suspicion.

Oh my gods! Oh my gods?

Frank freezes. He can feel Hazel's heartbeat, steady and loud against his fingertips, warm and comfortable and soft and gods, he actually feels like he slept for at least a full half hour, and that's more solid sleep than he's had in days. It takes so little time for Frank's eyes to close that a blush still burns across his face. He is almost asleep when his blanket is ripped from him and his toes are submerged in cold. 

Frank pulls his arm away from Hazel's waist and rubs at his eyes. He knows it's probably good that he woke up, that this is against the rules, that the concept of it is blush-inducing in the light of the day - but a part of him wants to snuggle closer under the blanket and get as much of this real sleep as he can before the sun rises. The urge sends a flustered rhythm to Frank's heart and solidifies his resolve to get out of his bed, so he pulls his arm from under Hazel's head and drops his legs over the side of the mattress. 

He wasn't expecting Hazel's hand to reach after his, tugging on him insistently.

"Frank?" she murmurs.

Frank swallows. "Hazel?" 

"Stay."

"Hazel!" Frank is sure that her breathy voice sent bright headlights to his cheeks.

"C'mon. You've been inside my memories - isn't that more indecent?" Hazel says, even as her cheeks flush and she pinches her lips together anxiously. Her cute, strange, old accent is always more pronounced when she faces any form of scandal - but past the cute, something like fear still dominates her expression. Maybe it's the leftover nightmarish terror in Hazel's eyes, or the momentary relief of actual sleep that made Frank crave more, or the way Hazel opens the blanket, but Frank finds himself lying back down, pulling the blanket over them both, and curling into Hazel's warm hands. 

That is where they are found hours later, sun streaming through Frank's small window and landing on Leo, who stood in the doorway, giggling as silently as he could and muttering something about Percy and Annabeth's good example.


End file.
